Way Back Home
by HelloItsTuesday
Summary: Killua Zoldyck may have had a bucket list, but dumpster-diving definitely was not part of it. He knew that crushing a poor girl wasn't there, either.


**_Way Back Home_**

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 **Chapter One:** _**A Trashy Assassin**_

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 _"I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right."_

 _-The Book Thief_

* * *

Killua Zoldyck may have had a bucket list, but dumpster-diving definitely was not part of it. He knew that crushing a poor girl wasn't there, either.

Unfortunately, that's exactly where he ended up - a horrible turn of events that started two years ago when his father thought that it was time for him to fight thirty-year-old men at the age of six...

* * *

Silva Zoldyck, esteemed head of the Zoldyck family and Killua's father, had decided it'd be best for his six-year-old son, an assassin in training, to make it to Floor 200 of the Heaven's Arena. It was a place where fighters all around the world gathered to duke it out for money or pleasure. The catch was that he couldn't return unless he had, in fact, made it to the top.

When Killua exited the tower, it had been two years later and he had been a couple million Jenny richer. He had also won another prize - nearly all of his adult teeth, due to the fact that he'd been hit so hard and so often that his poor baby teeth couldn't handle the stress.

He had originally thought that the fighters there might go easy on a "weak" little kid like him, but after he managed to make it to floor thirty without so much as a scratch, everyone took him seriously as an opponent.

So, naturally, bones had broken, teeth had been KO'd, and there would be days Killua had been so sore he could barely get out of bed in the morning.

But he had made it out victorious and a hell of a lot stronger. Killua treated himself to a buttload of snacks paid for using his prize money. The clerk's eyes bulged out of his head when he realized that the little kid was buying close to a thousand Jenny worth of chocolates. Killua snickered at the memory.

He had just started to munch on his first piece of chocolate before he got "the call", as he referred to it now. The call from his brother...the call that a client wanted someone dead.

Since Killua was already out of the house and the target was close to his area, he was assigned the mission.

Sighing, he stored his chocolates in a nearby alleyway and made his way to his target's residence.

* * *

At first, the mission had gone as planned. The target, a very wealthy man, was found exactly where Killua's information said he would be, doing exactly what he was expected to do - dozing off while absently writing off papers.

Unfortunately, Killua's information had failed to mention the target's daughter.

And how she was in the house while Killua murdered her father.

And how there were guards that followed her around everywhere.

And how she was entitled to check upon her father every thirty minutes due to her father's own anxiety.

This led to the situation Killua currently found himself in- being chased down a pristinely cut lawn in a pristinely kept estate by pristinely dressed guards who kept shouting profanities at him.

Of course, since it had been Illumi who had given him this information, Illumi had probably also left out the "important details" of the mission. His older brother had probably wanted to test him to see how well he could fare after being away for two years - like he'd get rusty after getting the crap beaten out of him.

The target's residence was fairly large when it was any normal person to look at it, but since Killua had spend his earlier years in an almost obnoxiously large mansion, it was small to his standards. The end of the lawn reached a wide road with multiple smaller roads branching off of it. Buildings rose to a decent height. There were not many people outside, as it was a particularly hot afternoon, and if he spotted one, they were facing the opposite direction from where he was coming from.

As he ran past multiple buildings, he made the split-second decision to jump into a nearby alleyway.

The alley was no larger than ten feet across and two-hundred feet long but that didn't stop a perfectly normal dumpster from being placed there. He tried to ignore the smell and the weeds that looked dangerous, to say the least.

Knowing that the guards might look down the alleyway when they finally caught up to him, he opened up the lid to the dumpster.

A horrible stench wafted up to his nostrils, and it took every part of him not to retch at the smell. He hesitated before he hopped into the garbage heap.

His cushion was surprisingly soft. Killua had thought that his backside would be poked with God knows what. Even if his new spot was surprisingly comfy, he knew that this was definitely not one of his finer moments.

"Where the hell is he?" Killua heard the slightly high voice of one of the guards shout.

"Who knows?" A deeper, baritone voice replied smoothly. "He couldn't have gotten far. He's just a little kid."

With that, the sound of their footsteps vanished into nothingness. He listened for a few more seconds before allowing himself to relax.

Killua had managed to get out of that uncomfortable position. Illumi should - would - be proud.

He sighed, relieved until -

"Umm, excuse me?" The soft, quiet voice coming from beneath him scared him so badly he smacked his head against the top of the dumpster.

Groaning in pain, he looked beneath him to the sound of the voice.

Big grey eyes met his. "You're kind of squishing me."

Killua's eyes widened impossibly huge before he scrambled off of the poor girl.

"Sorry..." he mumbled, heart still pounding from the unexpectedness of the situation. He couldn't believe that him, of all people, had managed to sit on top of some random girl in a dumpster. To top it off, he smelt like shit and looked like shit and his hand was covered in sticky crimson and he wanted nothing more than a big bag full of chocolate. His big bag of chocolate.

It clearly was not a good day to be Killua Zoldyck.

The girl climbed out of her little pile of garbage. There were empty soda cans stuck in her curly black hair - which he thought was totally gross - but she still managed to stare at him innocently.

They stared at each other in silence for a few moments.

Killua blinked.

The girl blinked back.

He sniffed.

She sniffed back.

Deciding to test her, he held up his left hand.

She held up hers.

He held up his right hand.

Her eyes bulged out of her head at the sight. A gasp escaped her lips.

"You're hurt!" she said as she lunged forwards to hold his hand. He looked down at his bloodstained hand, realizing his mistake.

"Umm...no I-"

"Don't worry mister! I can help!" The girl practically dragged him out of the dumpster by his "bad" hand, fussing over his "injury". She motioned for him to sit down against the wall of the alley. Killua made a noise of protest. The girl gave him puppy eyes that reminded him too much of Alluka so he sat down.

 _Alluka..._ He really missed her. Hopefully she was doing okay.

She ran to the far edge of the alleyway. Killua watched as she lifted up a discarded piece of cardboard and picked up two small objects. When she ran back to him, he was tense, eyeing the objects warily. The curly-haired girl just giggled at him, holding out the objects for him to see.

"I keep spare bandages in case something were to happen to me," she said as she pointed to the white bandages. "And water bottles for obvious reasons." She pointed to the other object. He stared at the objects in her hands, muttering an "oh" before he looked away and avoided her gaze.

First, the girl dumped the water bottle onto his hand. He watched as it rinsed away the drying blood. Then she carefully wrapped his hand with the white bandages all the way up to the top of his fingers.

The weird girl smiled up at him.

"There! All better!"

Killua sweatdropped. _If she had actually examined my hand, she would've noticed there was no wound..._

The girl stared up at him, a look on her face that was telling him he forgot to do something. Realizing what he was forgetting, he opened his mouth to thank her properly before he was interrupted.

"Did you check down here?" The deep voice said. His blood went cold.

"No sir," two voices replied.

 _They're close...!_

"Well hop to it men! We must find him!"

He listened as the sound of the guards' footsteps came even closer to where he and the girl were.

Killua's eyes widened. _Shit!_ he thought. _They're coming this way! What do I do? I have to get away...but if they find out this girl was with me, they might kill her!_ He clenched his teeth. _Damn!_ He thought for another few seconds before he decided. _I'll leave her and scale the wall. Then I'll stay up there 'till the guards leave. They won't have any suspicion she was with me unless she says something. So I just have to warn her not to give anything away..._

He glanced at the girl whose gaze was directed right at him. He prepared himself to tell her, but Killua stopped once he saw her eyes. At first, they had been confused. She had always looked at him like some average, stupid little kid. But now, to his surprise, she was looking at him with firm understanding.

Killua knew she heard the guards' approaching. If he had to guess, he'd say they were just a few meters away from the beginning of the alleyway.

"Are they...are you 'him'?"

He remained silent. It was enough for her. She grabbed his uninjured hand and pushed him towards the dumpster.

"Hide inside," she whispered. "I'll get them to go the other way. Make sure to bury yourself in the trash real deep, otherwise-"

She was cut off by more shouts from the guards. She looked back at him, slightly frantic. The tanned girl opened the lid for him.

"Go!"

And that was how Killua found himself in an oversized trashcan for a second time that day.

He vowed to _never again_ step foot in a dumpster _._ Even if he _died._

He listened as the guards walked down the alleyway, muttering incoherent things under their breath.

"Excuse me," said one of the more feminine-sounding guards. "We're looking for someone, a white-haired kid, and we want to know if you've seen him?"

Killua held his breath. _They're talking to the girl..._

"Hmmmm," he heard her say. "A white haired kid...? Why are you looking for him?"

The guards went silent.

"Well, we're not supposed to get civilians involved." the other softer-spoken guard said. "We told the people back there who asked that he was our boss's nephew who had ran away, but since you're just a little kid..."

"He murdered our boss," the deep-voiced guard said, clearly upset. "In cold blood, with his bare hands."

"Oh my," the girl answered, shock evident in her voice. "Well I do know where he went, if that helps."

Killua's blood ran cold. He looked down at the trash pile he was buried in. Suddenly it felt a whole lot worse on his conscious that he had killed that man. Now the girl would turn him in. Who wouldn't? He was a killer, a murderer.

"It would be very helpful," the deep-voiced guard replied smoothly.

He decided that he wouldn't be mad at her for turning him in, though. He just couldn't bring himself to be angry.

Killua started pushing the empty cans and pieces of...stuff off of him, ready to be taken by the guards. It made a little more noise than he wanted it to. He was sure that at least one of the guards heard it, if not all of them. He didn't really care. He'd let them do whatever they wanted to him, and then he'd escape. He would try and forget about the girl that-

"He went down that street, made a left." the girl lied.

 _...What?_

"Thank you, miss." the deep-voiced guard said. "I would also like to check around this area, just to be sure he didn't double back around."

"Sure, go ahead. This isn't my alley, anyways."

Killua panicked and buried himself deep in the trash, not making a sound this time around.

One guard opened the lid to the dumpster. He listened as at least one of them retched from the smell.

He sensed all three guards staring at the trash heap, looking for anything suspicious.

After a moment, they shut the lid.

"Thank you miss for your help." The soft-spoken guard said.

"You're welcome!" she answered cheerfully.

He heard the guards' footsteps fade away. Killua sighed loudly in relief.

"You can come out now," he heard right next to him. It scared him - again - and he let out a choke before jumping up and smacking his head, once again, on the top of the dumpster.

* * *

Killua was seated towards the middle of the alleyway, right behind the dumpster so no one would be able to see him if they happened to glance his way.

The girl sat down next to him.

After he smacked his head against the dumpster for the second time that day, she had kept apologizing profusely to the point where she was nearly in tears.

He tried calming her down, but it only managed to make her more hysterical, so he suggested that she go grab some water to drink to try and calm her down. She did, and now she had just returned to sit down next to him again.

"I never got your name," the girl said, smiling at him. He was honestly confused - first he nearly crushed this girl to death, then she freaks out over the blood on his hand - which was not his - she totally just saved him from those evil guards who told the truth right in front of her, and she could still smile at him?

She was certainly weird, he decided.

He stared at her for a second before he averted his gaze to the ground.

"Killua..." he mumbled, kicking a small pebble with his shoe.

"Killua?" she said back to him. "I like it!"

"Why..." he said quietly.

"Why what?"

"Why did you help me?" He looked up to meet her innocent stare. "You don't even know me and...what if what they said were true? What if I did kill their boss?"

 _What would you do then?_ _I'm a killer - an assassin._ _You should be scared of me..._ he thought bitterly.

She blinked before she stared at the coral-colored brick wall in front of them.

"I saw it in your eyes."

It was his turn to blink at her in confusion.

"I don't-"

"Your eyes. When you looked at me, silly. And when you heard the guards' voices. They weren't bad. When I saw the guards' eyes though, they looked mean. They looked like they wanted to hurt you." She smiled again. "So I decided that I would help you no matter what they said."

He looked down at the cobblestone, slightly embarrassed. "I never got your name..." he said.

"It's Mikaela," she answered.

"Mikaela?" He thought for a moment. "That's too long and boring."

"Hey!" The girl - Mikaela - protested. "It's not boooring!"

"But it is long."

She puffed out her cheeks in a pout. Before she could reply, he said, "So I'm going to call you 'Mika,' okay?"

Mikaela put her hand on her chin, thinking for a moment. "Okay, fine..." she finally answered, smiling at the ground.

 _She is really weird,_ Killua thought, staring at the empty soda cans that were still stuck in her hair. He stared up at the now evening sky. Killua's eyes widened and he jumped up to his feet suddenly. "My chocolates!" he screeched.

* * *

And that was how he ended up on a rooftop, overlooking the city and sharing his precious candy with Mika.

When she saw the chocolates, her eyes widened impossibly wide and drool started coming out of the side of her mouth. He sweatdropped when her eyes followed the chocolate he had in his hand around. Killua gave in when she started to whimper.

Mika squealed with joy, bouncing around before going absolutely still, nibbling on her piece of chocolate like a squirrel.

 _Weirdo..._ he thought, again, for the hundredth time. A thought kept itching in the back of his mind: _What was Mika doing in that Dumpster?_ Killua had a great reason to - hiding from the guards and whatnot - but Mika...? He had no idea.

He stared at her from the corner of his eye before he asked. "Why were you in the dumpster?"

Her reaction was immediate. She stopped chewing on her chocolate. Her leg stopped bouncing up and down. Mika stared blankly at the horizon. A few moments passed in silence before...-

"My family..."

"Oh." He didn't want to bother her any further - she looked seriously worse than she had before he asked, (as worse as she could get with trash in her hair) and he didn't want her to have an anxiety attack or something.

Killua really didn't want to deal with a hyperventilating eight-year-old at the moment.

"Do you want to..." He paused, staring at his shoes. Killua felt Mika's stare on his face. "Do you want to come back with me?"

Her face was confused, so he elaborated.

"Do you wanna come back with me? Back to my family?"

Killua didn't really mind what she said at that point. Mika had dealt with enough of him to last a lifetime, and he would be okay with whatever her answer was. He surely wouldn't be mad, though. Because he couldn't forget the girl that-

She smiled brightly at him. "Sure! Sure I would!"

-probably saved his life.

It would be the beginning of a grand adventure for the two of them.

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 **Hello my lovelies! Before I can say anything else, I have to give a HUGE thank-you to my beta reader, The Quiller. Thank you so much for helping me make this story the best it can be!**

 **School is starting up again in a week, so I can promise an update at least once a month. If there's a holiday, expect a bonus chapter :)**

 **To those of you who read my past stories _Renegades_ and _Heart of Gold_ , I will not continue them and have deleted them from my account. **

**Why?**

 **Poor editing and storyline on my part. I loved each and every review that i got on them, however. The support (even for my horrible writing) was amazing! Thank you all so much!**

 **Feel free to leave a review on any suggestions to the story, a remark on if you think a character is being OOC, or if you're confused on a certain aspect to the story. I love every review... I promise.**

 **Thanks for reading, babes.**

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 _Last Edited: 8.9.17_


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